NAM General Discussion Thread

[chocolate_city 93]

Certhas... I would try the installation again.... I had this problem before and solved by re-installing.... and make sure that you have gotten rid of any of the old NAM including older bridge installations also...

[DeiBellum 0]

yeah the problem i was having was that i would try to get my GLR off of the avenue strip by the end of the region where i had a toll booth. apparently it didn't like the toll both that much

[Jazzmaster 716]

Okay NAM team, I finally figured out what's overriding the traffic lights, it's one of MY BAT descriptors. The DIR file was screwing it up. So I could just generate a new instance/group ID and everything's hunky-dory right? Wrong. Not only did the ILive reader not save the new IID's for my BAT, but now instead of the signals just not showing up I'm having these big, butt-ugly brown boxes showing up in place of my signals. PLEEEASE NAM Team, somone, anyone, just tell me how to fix this problem or my cities will all look horrible! I'd really appreciate it!

-Yoshiisland

[warrior 169]

I would say reinstall the NAM but it's probably better to ask at SC4Dev.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Thanks for replying warrior,

Turns out the reader really DID generate new GID's and IID's, but I had to reinstall the NAM to get it to take affect. Just a quick question, but how do I stop this from happening again? It seems like everytime I try to make a new lot or something with a DIR file in it, it'll always end up with the same group/instances as the NAM stoplights...

And now I have to rework all this.  Because I deleted the files thinking they were the problem; but they're NOT anymore.  Go figure...there's another friggin' file screwing up my game and I can't find it *sigh*.

-Yoshiisland

[Navox 0]

My GLR doesn't have those tiles underneath it. I have the newest NAM so it should be in there...

Can anyone help?

[degnaw 0]

Originally posted by: hawkpride147 @ Macmatt...could you give us some specs on the computer you're using? do you have the NAM essentials, June 2007 NAM, and all patches for the game? you also need rush hour or delux.quote>

I'm having the same problem as Macmatt; however, i installed the NAM essentials and it still doesn't work. I have the new NAM, and i'm pretty sure i have all the patches (the last NAM worked fine), and i have rush hour.

[pharmist 0]

Hello, I am using the new Nam and also Road Top Mass transit 3.5. I am confused as to what I am observing in a test region for commute times. I have two cities A and B, A is residential low wealth and B is Dirty Industry and Agriculture with a little low wealth commercial. The two cities are connected by interstate at two locations and separate road arteries funneling to those interstate connections for each city. I have the Nam configured for perfect path finding and 10X commute,speed and usage. Before I introduce any mass transit I got the population up to 100,000 low wealth sims in A and 60 or 70 thousand IA, ID and C$ service in city B. At this point I max out the arteries leading to the interstate and get traffic warnings and accidents. My commute time up to this point is around 2 minutes (remember I have 10x speed). I decide to test with RTMT and put one subway at most congested spot in residential city A and run to ID in city B. After running city A within seconds my commute time jumps up to 40 minutes. I try to investigate as to why this is and use the route query on the subway line and sims are using it by the thousands and their pedestrian walk does not seem more than 4 or 5 tiles at both cities. The traffic congestion seems to decrease from those now riding the subway. To me it would seem that the subway route would be much shorter as it is a direct route. Anybody have any suggestions as to what could be happening here?

[SC4BOY 20]

If I want to ADD an item to the NAM that I skipped on the first install, do I just re-install the whole thing? Or is there a way to "add". I don't recall any comment on this in the doc's. I put it in without roundabouts, but the roundabouts look REALLY WEIRD now when I try to make circles .. streets get all whompyjawed, roads and one-ways just become a square, not a circle as soon as you make connections to them.. etc.. I didn't think I had "roundabouts" in the old NAM I was using, but clearly its acting differently than it did.

If I understand previous discussions, if I reinstall the NAM I need to go back in and "fix" the speed for the beta HSRP.. is this correct? Do one of you guru's have the "name" of the parameter to correct for HSRP (modified monorail) to make it run at 6000 or whatever it was? Will it work if I just make sure the HSRP plugin is AFTER the NAM? Thanks.. hope these aren't too elementary questions..

[intensivecarebear 0]

does anyone know how to make neighbor connections with the glr in avenue lots if its possible? Also, I can't seem to get the draggable glr to work. Im able to plop the glr peice, but when I try to connect the el rail to it nothing happens. Thanks for the help.

[hawkpride147 1]

@degnaw: do you have any previous versions of the NAM (or any other similar traffic mod) installed? also, could you provide us with some computer specs?

[jplumbley 5]

@Macmatt and Degnaw,  With the latest release of NAM there were updates for GLR and RHW.  Do you have either of these mods?  If so, it sounds like you may have old ones.  My suggestion is that you guys delete every Traffic Mod you have.  Other than something like RTMT (Road Top Mass Transit).  Then download and install in the following order:

1. NAM June 2007

2. NAM Essentials (June 2007)

3. RHW beta v13b (if wanted)

4. GLR

5. Any new NAM Bridges

6. SAM - Street Addon Mod (if wanted)

_______________

@pharmist, Im not entirely sure, this has nothing to do with the NAM.  It is an issue with the RTMT.  Are the sims using the roads that have the RTMT?  Or does it stop the traffic from using the road?  If this is the case then there is probably a badly modded function of the lot or lots and it isnt working properly.

Transit Enabled Lots are horrenous for use in transit networks for the game.  In my opinion RTMT is not worth the headache to use it as the lots are Transit Enabled and cause pathfinding issues and prevent growth for zones touching the lot etc.

_______________

@SC4BOY, To add something you didnt install you must re-install.

For the HSRP Speed, you will have to open the NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_xxx file.  In this file there is the Exemplar for the Transit Simulator.  You will want to edit the Monorail Train Speed property in the position that is currently sits as 200.

_______________

@intensivecarebear,  This is currently not possible.  We dont even know if it is feasible.

_______________

@Navox,  I am not sure what you are talking about.  A picture would speak 1000 words.

[srr2 1]

Is there a way I can install NAM for only the bugfixes? I don't need the extra transportation options so much as the realism and simulation fixes.

Thanks

[warrior 169]

If your going to have the NAM it's a very good idea to have the extra transport features. the features are probably the main point.

[srr2 1]

I know what I "should" use it for, but how can I use it the way I would like to: to fix bugs and pathing issues that result in abandoned buildings and long commutes?

[simontse1992 0]

I have a question.

Is the elevated roads/streets/avenue/rail puzzles able to cross town's boundries???

I tried several times but is still not okay

How can I do so, is there any tricks??

[Haljackey 17,303]

simontse1992: Simple answer: No. Just put your roads back on the ground to establish a connection.

[simontse1992 0]

how about oneway road?

Is it possible to cross town??

[Hamish 1,369]

Simply, no. You need to bring the one way road back to ground level to establish a connection.

[warrior 169]

One way roads can't make Neighbour connections what ever form they are in. If that's what your asking.

[SC4BOY 20]

I have come across an extremely odd behavior from the NAM on a segment of street that I was using in a small part of a city. I am posting this so those with the "smarts" can look into this.. this definitely is NOT the behaviour that one should see.

I have made pics because its just almost too unbelievable ..

This was done after a couple of years of slow running and no scene movement because I have come across odd behaviours before, but it normally clears up if allowed to run. This seems to be rather permanent. 

I also wiped all roads and re-laid them and allowed the game mechanics to re-calculate them. It seems to relate to the fact that this is a street extended from a road and MAY relate to the fact that the road/street junction is in the middle of the lot.. I also tried deleting the last tile (where it touches the city edge) just to see if it somehow related to being an edge tile. 

====================

EDIT Further brief testing today showed that it is none of the above.. there is some flaw in the function of the new NAM in some form or an old fault that was not exposed in previous versions. 

====================

I will say in many hundreds of hours of playing.. all using the NAM in one form or another for several years time.. that this has never been seen before.. and I have gazillions of miles of road and streets and many transitions.. I simply don't understand it. 

I just started using hte newest NAM a few days ago .. don't know if that is related.. I use all NAM components, perfect paths, 2x10x10x  for anyone who cares. I have no other "travel mod's" installed... ie no special stations, stops, etc.. pretty plain vanilla.. 

I would sum up the behaviour as treating the street section almost as a "reverse avenue" with cars passing the plant, going to the end of the street, and coming back (ie double traffic except at the end section of road) where it finally goes into the "work place" industry. In the "traffic path trace" you can actually see this "loop" if you look closely.

First the basic layout with no overlays:

Next the image of "traffic flow" with cut and paste numbers so you can see what is happening:

I am not looking for someone to "fix it for me" .. just presenting the issue so someone may find the cause and correct it for upcoming releases.

Thanks to all the NAM team for their diligent work..

EDIT  Hmm.. as I played today I found that this behaviour (traffic going to the end of a "non-intersection" road end, then doubling back to the target) has become commonplace in the new NAM.. Looks like this got through the testers? Sure plays hell with the road traffic limits..  Or maybe its the result of some other "addon" that I decided to load on the NAM this time which formerly didn't use such as the ANT or bridge addons or whatever... Or perhaps it is the result of PERFECT pathfinding.. I believe before I used "standard" or "better" or whatever they are called.

EDIT: NOTE: In trying out some of the new information on maxis pathing and the new work the NAM team is doing, the re=install does not seem to exhibit ANY of this odd behaviour. This may have been a temporary issue in a version of the NAM or the result of mixing some of the "old" and new NAM or an incorrect install. I did change heuristics from perfect to better.. that may be part of it too. At any rate for now, I think the issue is dead. I will watch for it in the near future.

[SC4BOY 20]

Originally posted by: jplumbley ...

@SC4BOY, To add something you didnt install you must re-install.

For the HSRP Speed, you will have to open the NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_xxx file.  In this file there is the Exemplar for the Transit Simulator.  You will want to edit the Monorail Train Speed property in the position that is currently sits as 200.

quote>

Thanks.. got impatient and just unpacked the file and added the roundabouts in the proper folder.. As far as I can tell it worked *keeps fingers crossed*

For the HSRP I followed the suggestion in the HSRP thread (true it was written a year or so ago) which suggested simply that I assure that the HSRP plugin folder follow the NAM plugin folders. Do you think that is inadequate? Should I in fact do something different? The HSRP normally loaded first due simply to its name, but I renamed the folder to zHSRP. It SEEMS to work right, but I've made no effort to check it...

edit: hmmm well that's not exactly correct.. after doing the changes I did some traffic balancing runs of each of the city tiles and the HSRP traffic increased by a large amount without other changes to the cities, so that suggests that it was effective..

[RaptorCK 0]

Okay, maybe I'm an idiot who can't search properly, maybe I'm not, but I've searched all over the forums, Google, etc., and I haven't found a definitive answer on a few nagging issues that I'm having with my city.

1) Is there anything in NAM or related mods that would let me add 30 or 60-degree roadways?

2) Is there anything available for underground avenues/highways?

3) For that matter, is there a good way to set up an underwater two-lane tunnel without massive terraforming?

If someone tells me to RTFM, I would just like to know which manual, since I've read all that I've found, and come up completely emtpy-handed.

Thanks in advance!

[jplumbley 5]

@RaptorCK  Answers:

1)  No and probably never will be, the amount of work would be astronomical.

2)  Not yet...  Experimental efforts are being made, we shall see where it goes.

3)  No.

@SC4Boy

Post 1 - Weird Path

It has been recently discovered that there is a semi-fatal flaw in the original Traffic Simulator that was never fully addressed by NAM and with some of the NAM Traffic Simulators actually made worse.  I dont have time to explain it, but if you want to learn and read about it follow this link:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2665.40

There is a couple of test files the latest one may help your issue out.  Remember this is still in the concept/experimental stage and we need feedback on what it does to your cities, good or bad.

Post 2 - HSRP

I dont think there is any need to worry if it works, loading last.  The Traffic Simulator that HSRP adjusts MUST be after the NAM Traffic Simulator.

[Haljackey 17,303]

RaptorCK: Heres some answers to your questions:

1.  No, sorry.  Besides, it would not line up well with the grid in the game, so it would be difficult to zone/place buildings along the roads at that degree.

2.  There is a tunnel entrance/exit for a highway available for download.  However, once underground, the lot simply converts highway traffic to subway traffic.  All you have to do is connect a subway line between the tunnel entrance and the exit and you will have a connection!  There have been some issues with this mod though, but as jplumbley already stated, efforts are being made to make this concept feasible.  To download the tunnel system, it is found offsite (@ Sim City 4 Devotion), so you will have to Register Here, and once done, search for BLAHDY under "Quick search".  Two files for downloading should appear, download them both.

3.  You can use the Hole Digging Lots (you don't have to register offsite, yay!) to create an underwater tunnel of any network type.  However, they are just like standard tunnels, and must be constructed straight only.

If you have any problems with the plugins, check out the readme files that are included.  If you still have some issues, feel free to post here again.

Welcome to Simtropolis RaptorCK!  I hope you enjoy your stay!

-Haljackey.

[SC4BOY 20]

In the latest NAM release, there are two puzzle pieces that I cannot find. There is a "ground to raised highway transition piece" which was also on the last NAM.

The missing pieces are an onslope highway piece (which I don't use and don't know much about) and a piece that, it you use the lifter lot to raise the gound and put a ground highway on it, will exactly bridge from raised to ground highway in a virtually smooth transition..

I used this many times on my cities and now they simply don't show on my graphics.. (they seem to still be there, but are "invisible").. Anyone have suggestions where that piece has been relocated in the menus? or if it has been eliminated, what's my best plan for using all my old cities with the new NAM?

These were formerly the 2nd and 3rd to last items in the menu for the "custom interchange" button which also held the Avenue "Y" Interchange piece.

EDIT: Here's a pic of the "phantom piece" as it appears when I open a city tile with it in it. I said above that it was "there" but now I am not so sure... It shows traffic, but I am not sure it is a valid number. I will need to take a look at it in a city tile where I know the answer and I haven't done that as of yet.  Hmm.. I just looked at this and it appears to be the traffic from the last valid run of the city tile. It never seems to update, and it seems to block the highway so no traffic can pass.

I suppose the "new" default is to use the "auto join" of overlapping elevated and ground and letting the NAM draw the bridge.. it looks like crap, so I either need to have a lesson on the right way to draw them, OR...... have the old, functional, good-looking piece back..

Here is what you get if you let the NAM make an "auto-transition".. pretty ugly!!

edit: Haven't received any comment over the last couple of weeks, but I'm adding that not having this piece available any more is really rather annoying. The "transition method" takes up MANY tiles and cannot have any cross or intersection usage over that entire length and it is really ugly on anything other than flat ground. The old piece allowed an intersection IMMEDIATELY after and took up very little space. The transition looks good if on perfectly flat ground and over many tiles, but the other method was much more flexible and allowed compact changes from el to ground highway. It also looked far better if the gound was uneven in any way.

edit: I forgot I had posted this here.. this thread doesn't seem to get much attn and I decided I probably posted in the wrong place. At any rate, the problem was ALL MINE..   Turns out that I dl'd the June 2007 NAM but when I went to the folder to install I ran an old 2006 NAM install file instead.. Can't believe how many stupid hours I wasted on this!!! LOL.. My apologies to all

[mayormot 4]

All the alphas of possible "new versions" in testing right now are built around values very close to the "(Maxis Speed), 5x Commute, Better Pathfinding, 2x Capacity" version that's in the NAM right now. If you just want to play the game and have it work right, right now, that's a VERY good choice, IMO. It makes the simulator's scale match the visual scale closely enough that the player can tell what's going on, which is a great place to start.

[Shadow Assassin 336]

1. No, sorry. Besides, it would not line up well with the grid in the game, so it would be difficult to zone/place buildings along the roads at that degree.quote>

Not true at all. It'd end up being drawn in a fashion similar to that of diagonal streets. I'm considering this idea.

[SC4BOY 20]

Originally posted by: jplumbley @SC4Boy

Post 1 - Weird Path

It has been recently discovered that there is a semi-fatal flaw in the original Traffic Simulator that was never fully addressed by NAM and with some of the NAM Traffic Simulators actually made worse.  I dont have time to explain it, but if you want to learn and read about it follow this link:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2665.40

There is a couple of test files the latest one may help your issue out.  Remember this is still in the concept/experimental stage and we need feedback on what it does to your cities, good or bad.

quote>

Read the post in detail and it filled in on/ refreshed my memory very nicely on the SC4 functions and algorithms.. very nice read.. thanks for the reference.  I did not find in any way however how this relates to the phonomena above unless you are suggesting it is a function of my perhaps unfortunate choice of "perfect pathfinding" in which case the algorithm is finding all possible paths and the shown one is simply an unfortunate alternate..

It seems to me to be far more likely to result from some "lane pathing" or "center lane and/or median crossing" toy which has gone awry..

Didn't d/l the alpha stuff for various reasons, but I'll follow the issue with interest.. lots of nice ideas (and some I don't much care for too.. haha) but I'll let all that sort out by the various guru's before I butt in.. I'll watch the evolution of the pro's and con's.. 

 

[Drewhajime 0]

guys ,

i would like to ask , i'm using the latest NAM modd pack

i did the full installation and i still dont have the "Smoncrie's Hole Digger Lots"

may i know where i can get this modd ?